The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1887-02-09
IN THE MIDDLE WEST,
A Story of Life in the Great
Mississippi Valley.
BY ALvA MILTON KERR.
1885, BY THE A. N. KELLOGG
NEWSPAPER COMPANY.
CHAPTER XxIv.-CoNrrNuEp.

CHAPTER XXIv.-CoNr1NuED
Celeste laughed despite her enlisted
sympathy.
Besides" he said, ''men must at
last learn that ennui, if not something
worse, lies inevitably at the end of
luxury. That fair taste of most
things in this world IS better than COM
plete qualification. Then again, while
men are unriddling other problems of
existence, this one of mans
inequality of condition is thrust
ing Itself into our very faces
and must and will be explored and
solved. 1t can never be reached
through anarchy and blood. but only
by the warm currents of educated love
melting human seltishness away and
the gentle fingers of pity at the world s
purse-strings. As man advances he
smust surely come to see that more than
he wholesomely needs is only care
and weight to him and that in COM
mon decency it should 90 to those who
need it. We are all unclothed and
equal at birth, all members of one
family, why should we scheme and
cheat and basely befool each other out
of life's common heritagep''
They all got down in Eden Park 10
see the sun set. The two elder ladies
remained upon the hillside resting in a
rustic seat, and still farther exploring
the question suggested. Mrs. Gleason
was in ferment lest such philosophy
might STRAIN and perhaps break the
fine lines of aristocracy, and was rath-
er more ruffied than soothed when
Mrs. Brayton thought that, while it
might be fatal to the aristocracy OF
wealth, it would be the making of the
aristocracy of virtue and brains Then
Mrs. Gleason was worried, too, that
such scheme of equality would render
the carrying forward of great wealth
from generation to generation by one
family impossible, and was but little
Modified when Mrs. Brayton offered
the thought that perhaps that very
thing was the veltebra of the Kingship
OF Dollars, and should be broken; and
further, that the bequeathing of wealth
to ones offspring, in any case, was
usually a curse to them, since if they
held to and augmented it they were
left no commonality of feeling with the
poor, and if they squandered it, as was
mostly the case, they generally went
down in the wreck, diseased, and every
way unfit for life.
Mrs. Gleason looked discouraged in
deed, as she tapped her shining boot
upon the ground and gazed away where
the canopy of smoke, here and there
shot through with slanting sunshine,
hung over the toiling city. Mrs. Bray
ton leaned back and watched her with
smile on her pleasant face. "Never
mind" she said, ''such goodness
among men will scarcely be popular in
our day, nor perhaps during the lives
of those soft-hearted children dream
ing up there, though hope it may"
and she turned and waved her hand to
Celeste and John Earling where they
sat upon the crown of the green &C.
clivity.
All! it is a deep world, as Celeste
had said, and that which broods above
and moves it is Love itself; though not
always can its clear beams, turned
aside by lowering shapes of greed and
lust, come through the vulture- wings
and touch us or shine through our
deadened, glutted spirits into lovely
action.
To John EARRING the touch of her
dress was sweet, and the light laying
OF her hand upon his. as she pointed to
something'in the landscape, filled him
with pleasure as clean as the sunshine.
"Lookr she said, what burst of
sunshiner and indeed the world was
flooded divinely, as the great orb
swung down out of the silyer-rimmed
clouds and hung burning close above
the far off tree-tops. at brings a
sunset to me of long ago." she said;
cit seems so bright and definite in my
memory, l suppose, because l was a
child. 1t was when was little girl,
| remember, and mamma and l went
from our home in Washington to
Grandpa Snaer' in New York State.
He lived on the upper Hudson, and
upon that evening am speaking of, l
remember he took my hand and we
walked across a pasture west of the
house, and from high swell of ground
we watched the sun 60 down. He was
gray and bent, | remember, and not
very strong; and when we had looked
q long time at the light slanting along
the hills, much as it does here, tears
came into his eyes, and / asked him
why he cried. He will never come;
shall never see him., he said. we
parted In wrath, and he will never
come backH Then 1 asked him who